


Snowball Fight

by shieldivarius



Series: Femslash Yuletide 2013 [15]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, Femslash Yuletide, Fluff, Prompt: Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieldivarius/pseuds/shieldivarius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha liked snow. Melinda didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowball Fight

Natasha and Barton were engrossed in a snowball fight in direct view of the mess hall windows, and didn’t _that_ sound just as ridiculous as it looked. Watching, safe inside and out of both the cold and the path of any deviously thrown snowballs, Melinda couldn’t quite work out how the battle had started, but Barton’s supply of snow was limited to the crooks of the branches in the tree he’d climbed up and he might’ve had the better vantage point, but the smaller supply of ammunition was going to leave him high and dry and at Natasha’s mercy sooner rather than later.

Sooner, it turned out when Barton lobbed the last sizeable snowball he was going to be able to make with the snow he had. Natasha dodged it, stepping to one side and bending a bit at the waist. The snowball flew clear, disappearing into the drift behind her. 

Natasha’s back was to her, her head tilted up to look at Barton, arms crossed in front of her. Melinda didn’t have trouble picturing the grin on her face, or the smug expression that accompanied her popped hip. 

Barton said something that involved a lot of hand gestures. Natasha pulled a black knit hat out of her back jeans pocket and pulled it on over curls that were starting to frizz from the dampness of the snow in her hair, and otherwise didn’t move. Changing tactics, Barton’s gestures became grander and directed at Melinda, overtop of Natasha’s head. 

Asking her for help, she thought, and Melinda let him stew for a moment and continue making a fool of himself waving before she pulled the zipper of her coat higher. Lacking the proper footwear to go wading through two feet of snow, she kept to the cleared sidewalk in the courtyard outside of the mess.

That kept her some distance from their tree when she stopped walking next to the trails they’d made, running through the snow after one another. From here, though, she could hear Barton whining.

“Let me down! May! Call her off!”

Melinda mimicked Natasha’s pose, arms folded over her chest, one hip popped, as much in solidarity as because crossing her arms kept more of her body heat in. Snow and the cold were amongst her least favourite things. They were her least favourite types of weather system.

She could only imagine what their plateau looked like from inside the mess _now._

“He’s being a sore loser,” Natasha called. She bent and started gathering snow into another ball, trusting that Melinda was covering her back. Her hands were red from handling the snow unprotected by gloves. Straightening, and either not noticing the cold or not allowing it to bother her, Natasha compressed the ball more firmly, then started throwing it up into the air and catching it.

Barton looked around, and Melinda would swear he was cowering, trying to find a place in the branches where he’d be out of reach of her aim. There wasn’t one. 

“Concede defeat,” Natasha said. “I will let you out of that tree if you admit I won and agree that this fight is over. 

“ _And_ ,” she raised the index finger of the hand holding onto the snowball to forestall whatever he’d been about to say. “You’re buying when we grab coffee after we’ve dried off.”

Barton crossed his arms. “What if I don’t come down? You just going to stand there? ‘Cause I know I can outlast you, sweetheart.”

Natasha hurled the snowball at him, and Melinda didn’t know _how_ he hadn’t expected it after addressing her with a pet name, but he didn’t try and dodge out of the way. It smacked him in the centre of the chest, knocking him off balance. He fell from the tree with a shout, catching himself on one of the lower branches with one hand and jerking to a dangling stop.

“Cheater!” he said, letting go of the branch and dropping the last three feet to the ground.

Natasha scoffed. “Coffee, you’re buying,” she said, and turned, rubbing her hands together to warm them up and shooting Melinda an amused smile. “Hi,” she said, kicking a small avalanche of snow from the ploughed bank and back onto the sidewalk when she stepped onto it. 

Behind her, Barton looked back and forth between them with a conniving expression. 

“I don’t think he’s quite done,” Melinda said. And sure enough, Barton had bent and collected a handful of snow, packing it into a perfect little projectile as she watched. She lifted her chin a bit, and Natasha turned enough to glance at him.

“If he wants to risk hitting you, he’s welcome to it. If he thinks I’m protecting him, he’s deluded,” she paused and smiled. “Actually…” she murmured, and grinned.

Melinda frowned at her and shook her head back and forth the tiniest margin. Not only was she hardly dressed for the weather—sure, she had a coat on, but she didn’t have gloves or even a hat—but Natasha knew full well how much she _hated_ snow.

Natasha only raised her eyebrows, her expression playful, enticing Melinda to join them. Sticking herself right in the middle of a snowball fight between Barton and Natasha didn’t seem like the best idea, from where she was standing (barely shielded by Natasha, who would dive out of the way if she thought she was going to be hit by another of Barton’s projectiles).

But Barton couldn’t be dumb enough to take the both of them on, could he?

Of course, the answer to that question was a resounding ‘yes,’ she discovered a moment later, when Barton pitched the snowball in his hand. Natasha, with her attuned sense of immanent danger, dove off to one side, pulling Melinda down with her, on top of her.

Into the snow.

Her hands chilled on impact, catching herself so she didn’t land fully on top of Natasha, beneath her, but enveloped to the wrists by the soft, fluffy white stuff, skin wet and red where the snow melted on contact with the warmth of it. 

Natasha shook in bursts, and Melinda, alarmed, backed up enough to see her face. Her eyes screwed up, she lay flat on her back in the snow bank, laughing and trying not to be too obvious about it. 

With a bit of effort and trying to neither kneel on Natasha nor in more of the unbroken snow around them, Melinda stood and shoved her hands under her armpits instead of reaching out to help Natasha up. Across the lawn, Barton was laughing like a hyena, bent at the waist and wiping at his eyes.

“I’m done!” he shouted between outbursts of laughter. 

Melinda scowled. “Dirty pool, Barton.” 

Natasha sat up, smiling but with her laughter under control. 

“You should get up, you’re going to get sick,” Melinda said, watching Barton carefully and just _waiting_ for him to decide he wasn’t actually done.

“Unlikely,” Natasha said, but she stood anyway. She looked around at Barton, and must’ve given him a nasty glare despite her amusement because he made a face at her and feigned throwing another snowball. Natasha crouched and, in a flash, had created another snowball and thrown it at him.

“Hey!” he shouted. 

“Help me out here,” Natasha said, glancing at Melinda. “It’s fun.”

She made a motion to exaggerate that her hands were still shoved firmly against her coat, beneath the crooks of her arms, because they hadn’t warmed up yet and weren’t going to be able to form little balls of snow any time soon. 

“You and I have very different definitions of that term,” Melinda said. 

Making a very obvious motion, like she’d only then noticed Melinda’s stance and attempt to warm her hands, Natasha smiled, reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out a pair of gloves. She handed them to Melinda.

Feeling like she was giving in, Melinda pulled them on anyway, because they were dry and warm from Natasha’s body heat. 

“How about now?” Natasha asked, her voice more a purr than anything else. 

“Two-on-one? He’ll just call cheat.”

“I can make it worth your while,” she said, still in that same purr. 

Natasha knew her well. _Not_ that she made a habit of letting her partner entice her into doing things with fluttering eyelashes and sultry tones, but Natasha knew when to use those things, and something this unimportant and pitched so playfully was the time. 

“My reputation can’t afford for us to lose this,” she said, and if she gave the snow a bit of a disgusted look when she crouched down and started packing it into a ball, Natasha didn’t comment. At least her hands were shielded from actually touching the stuff.

Barton, goofing around and making a little snowman instead of paying attention to them, looked over and yelped. And then he ran.

Natasha laughed, low and sure of herself, as they watched. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”

**Author's Note:**

> http://shieldivarius.tumblr.com


End file.
